Podcast Summary: TED Radio Hour — “Future You”

Host: Manoush Zomorodi (NPR)
Guests: Hal Hirschfield, Shankar Vedantam, Bina Venkatraman, Roman Krznaric
Date: October 10, 2025

Overview

This episode of TED Radio Hour, titled “Future You,” explores why planning for the future is so psychologically difficult, both for ourselves as individuals and as a society. Host Manoush Zomorodi interviews psychologists, philosophers, and historians to unpack how our brains imagine the future, how our sense of self evolves over time, and what it means to be a “good ancestor”—making choices today that benefit generations we’ll never meet.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Psychology and Neuroscience of the "Future Self"

Guest: Hal Hirschfield, Psychologist at UCLA

• The Core Question: Why is it so hard to prioritize our future well-being over immediate rewards?

  • “Why is it so hard, at least for some of us, to be kind to our future selves?” — Manoush Zomorodi [00:45]

• Neural Evidence:

  • When asked to think about our future selves, our brains respond as if thinking about a stranger.
  • Key finding: In MRI studies, people's brains showed the same response when thinking about their future selves as when thinking about celebrities like Matt Damon or Natalie Portman.
    • “Meaning in the brain, the future self looks like another person.” — Hal Hirschfield [04:58]
  • This lack of connection makes it rational, in a sense, to ignore future consequences.
    • “In some ways it's almost rational to live for today because these consequences are going to befall some other person.” — Hal Hirschfield [07:20]

• Variability:

  • Some people feel more connected to their future selves. Where this sense comes from is still an open research question.
    • “People do vary in the sense of connection and the sense of similarity that they have to their future selves.” — Hal Hirschfield [08:01]

• Temptation & Modernity:

  • Immediate temptations—like instant online shopping—make it even harder to prioritize the future.
    • “Being able to buy things with just like my face ID... Anything that I want, I can get it right now.” — Hal Hirschfield [08:53]

• Interventions:

  • Techniques to bridge the present-future gap include visualizing your older self with age-progression technology.
  • A field experiment: Bank customers who saw aged images of themselves were 16% more likely to contribute to retirement.
    • “The people who got exposed [to their aged images] end up being about 16% more likely to make a contribution.” — Hal Hirschfield [12:50]

Notable Quotes:

• “The more the future self looked like another person on a neural level, the less likely people would be to save for that future self.” — Hal Hirschfield [10:13]
• “Charities do a really good job at getting you to feel closer to charity recipients so you’ll end up forking some of your hard-earned dollars.” — Hal Hirschfield [10:46]

2. Personal and Philosophical Reflections on Changing Selves

Guest: Shankar Vedantam, Journalist and host of Hidden Brain

• Little Me, Unknowable Future:

  • People, especially kids, have strong and often unrealistic ideas about what their future selves will be like and want.
  • Personal stories: Children name grand ambitions; adults recall how their life paths diverged from youthful expectations.
    • “We grow to be fundamentally different people who want different things.” — Shankar Vedantam [22:01]

• The “Illusion of Continuity”:

  • We underestimate how much we’ll change. Looking back, we see how much we’ve evolved, but looking forward, we assume continuity.
    • “There is a paradox here... When we look backwards, we can see enormous changes in who we have become. But when we look forwards, we tend to imagine that we are going to be the same people in the future.” — Shankar Vedantam [22:42]

• Real-Life Consequences:

  • The story of John and Stephanie Rinka: Anticipating preferences for medical treatment in a distant future is fraught, as future circumstances and personalities cannot be fully predicted.
    • “If, in fact, we are different people in the future than we are today, we are making plans for a stranger.” — Shankar Vedantam [27:39]

• Practical Philosophical Advice:

  • 1. Accept Change: Acknowledge that your future self will be different; architect your growth.
  • 2. Exercise Humility: Recognize today’s convictions may not endure; be less dogmatic.
  • 3. Be Brave: Embrace new opportunities; future selves may have greater capacities than you imagine.
    • “What we really should be saying is I don’t have the capacity to do those things today. That doesn’t mean I won’t have the capacity to do those things tomorrow. So lesson number three is to be brave.” — Shankar Vedantam [30:42]
  • Takeaways: Individual choices you agonize over may matter less as you evolve; adaptability and kindness to oneself are key.

Notable Quotes:

• “We are going to change in remarkable ways. And we and the world are going to be very different tomorrow than who we are today.” — Shankar Vedantam [33:15]
• “Treat ourselves the way we treat the children whom we love... extend some of the same empathy you extend to a crying child, to your own self.” — Shankar Vedantam [31:16]

3. Collective Foresight: Societal and Historical Approaches to the Future

Guest: Bina Venkatraman, Washington Post columnist, author of The Optimist’s Telescope

• Learning from History for Future Planning:

  • Societies often fail to plan far enough ahead—and enduring disasters can result.

  • Example: The Fukushima vs Onagawa nuclear power stations after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

    • In Onagawa, the plant was built with history in mind—a thousand-year-old tsunami legend influenced safer siting and construction.
    • “It was his knowledge of history that allowed him to imagine what others could not.” — Bina Venkatraman [39:29]

  • Looking too short-term: Companies and governments often focus on immediate metrics and the most recent crises, leading to overcorrections and unbalanced policies.

    • “It’s very much in human psychology to respond to whatever risk has just befallen us.” — Bina Venkatraman [41:29]

• The Problem of Nuclear Waste — Thinking in Deep Time:

  • How do we warn people thousands of years in the future about dangers like radioactive waste?
  • Proposed solutions — from elaborate signage to genetically engineered “green cats”—demonstrate both creativity and futility in truly understanding the needs of future generations.
    • “These ideas just really expose the futility of trying to really intimately know future generations.” — Bina Venkatraman [43:38]

• Heirloom Metaphor & Intergenerational Responsibility:

  • Receiving an instrument from her great-grandfather, Bina felt connected both backward and forward in time.

    • “It was custom made for my great grandfather... When I first heard the sound of this instrument, it haunted me. It felt like hearing a voice from the past. This instrument is in my home today, but it doesn’t actually belong to me.” — Bina Venkatraman [46:13]

  • We are both descendants and ancestors; our task is to “shepherd” the world for future generations, not just own it.

    • “This, I believe, is the single most powerful way we can reclaim foresight. By seeing ourselves as the good ancestors we long to be.” — Bina Venkatraman [47:44]

4. A Call to Become "Good Ancestors" and Time Rebels

Guest: Roman Krznaric, Philosopher, Author of The Good Ancestor

• The "Colonization of the Future":

  • Societies currently “dump” risk and harm (ecological, technological) on future generations who have no say or rights.
    • “We treat [the future] like a distant colonial outpost where we can freely dump ecological damage and technological risk as if there was nobody there.” — Roman Krznaric [48:48]

• "Time Rebels" & Models of Long-Term Thinking:

  • Japan’s Future Design Movement: Residents imagine themselves as citizens from the year 2060, leading to transformative, future-oriented city plans.
    • “The residents from 2060 systematically advocate far more transformative city plans.” [49:54]
  • Legal Action: Lawsuits are being brought to secure the rights of future generations.
  • Looking to Nature: Nature thrives for thousands of generations by "taking care of the place that will take care of their offspring."
    • “A profound starting point for time rebels everywhere is to focus not simply on lengthening time, but on regenerating place.” [51:50]

• The Ultimate Challenge: See ourselves as part of a long continuum—both ancestors and descendants—interconnected over centuries.

  • “Let us all become time rebels and be inspired by the beautiful Mohawk blessing spoken when a child is born. Thank you Earth, you know the way.” [52:40]

Notable Quotes

• “It was a surprising finding… the future self looks like another person.” — Hal Hirschfield [05:18]
• “We can be the authors of our future self.” — Shankar Vedantam [28:29]
• “Accept that you are going to be different in 30 years time.” — Shankar Vedantam [28:29]
• “What greater thing to belong to than the fabric of time?” — Bina Venkatraman [45:08]
• “The tragedy is that tomorrow’s generations aren’t here to challenge this pillaging of their inheritance.” — Roman Krznaric [49:03]

Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• [02:16] — Hal Hirschfield describes the neuroscience experiment and its surprising results showing future self as "another person."
• [10:13] — Linking neural patterns to real-world decision-making: Saving behavior correlates with “future self as stranger.”
• [18:22] — Hal introduces “harmony” (vs. balance) as a way to bridge present and future selves.
• [22:01] — Shankar describes personal and universal “illusion of continuity.”
• [25:37] — The John and Stephanie Rinka story: Making life-or-death decisions for unpredictable future selves.
• [30:42] — Shankar’s three takeaways: Accept change, exercise humility, be brave.
• [39:34] — Bina Venkatraman details the Onagawa nuclear plant’s disaster resilience, rooted in historical memory.
• [43:32] — The “green cats” anecdote and the challenge of nuclear waste communication.
• [46:13] — Bina’s heirloom instrument metaphor for intergenerational stewardship.
• [49:54] — Roman Krznaric on “Future Design” and the transformative power of long-term thinking in governance.
• [51:50] — “Regenerating place,” learning from nature for long-term survival.

Conclusion – Big Takeaways

• For Individuals:

  • Our brains struggle to empathize with our future selves, but interventions—like visualizations and emotional connections—can bridge the gap.
  • Personal plans, convictions, and preferences are subject to profound and unpredictable change. Embrace adaptability, humility, and courage.

• For Societies:

  • History provides vital lessons for facing future risks, but institutions rarely look back far enough or forward long enough.
  • Investing in “future citizenship” and adopting practices from cultures with long-term perspectives can help make our planning more resilient.

• As a Legacy:

  • The ultimate goal is to see ourselves as both descendants and ancestors within the “fabric of time,” taking stewardship roles for generations far beyond our own lifetimes.

Resources:

• Hal Hirschfield, Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today
• Shankar Vedantam, Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain
• Bina Venkatraman, The Optimist's Telescope
• Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

For more brainy miscellany, visit TED Radio Hour. Listen to full TED talks at ted.com.